I really wanted to do a proper, long and detailed wrapup post for SXSWi but I’m not going to because there was just so much going on and it’s still digesting in my mind what transpired in Austin. That and I’m really tired due to a day at the airport, flight delays and BBQ withdrawal.
So in no particular order, here’s some thoughts on what happened in Austin over the past week:
- this year was way bigger than last year - lots of people guessing on the numbers so take this with a grain of salt but it’s ’supposably’ 50% bigger than last year. So that puts it somewhere between 5000 and 10000 geeks in one place. This was especially evident since previously, you’d always run into people you know but this year, I know there were people I knew in Austin and yet I never managed to see them in the halls/panels
- I wished I made it to the I Can Haz Cheeseburger panel - they were actually giving out hamburgers to the audience
- 12 sessions per time slot does not work
- 10am panels are very hard to attend
- there needs to be more technical panels. Of all the ones I attended, only two could be considered (by me) technical and they were incredibly well attended - as in standing-room-only-geeks-sitting-in-the-aisles-fire-hazard kind of well attended. Of course since there was 12 sessions in every timeslot (plus other stuff in and around the convention center), it’s entirely possible there were more technical sessions.
- the panel rooms need to be reworked (again). Nothing sucks more than having to go from room 18ABCD to Room C - it’s like walking to Surrey from North Vancouver. I’m all for the walking but when you consider that a panel ends at say 11am and the next one starts at 11:30am, it doesn’t give you much time to actually talk to the panelists afterword, or with friends about the panel before you have to start hoofing it to the other end of the convention center to get a decent seat for the next session
- Twitter stayed up during the whole conference which is a huge deal since it was probably the number one web site talked about (yes, even more than Facebook and the infamous interview). Impromptu ‘Tweetups’ happened everywhere and were awesome. Your twitter name should be printed on the badge next year (everyone just wrote it on theirs this year)
- Internet access generally seemed better this year…except at my hotel which crawled. The convention center’s wifi was much more robust this year and they had a 802.11n access point which was great. Also more and more venues had free wifi so it made using Twitter and checking Google maps a breeze. My prepaid AT&T sim also got a good workout and thanks to some flaky hotel access, ended up costing more than it should have - see my $12 flickr photo for one example:
- Apple should have sponsored a shuttle to the Apple Store…there was a convoy of cabs there from the convention center on a daily basis.
- Canadians showed up in force this year. Not just the 20-30 Vancouverites I knew were going either….great folks from across this great land came down and had a great time
- Once again, the Raincity Studios crew had the best, most coveted t-shirts (read about it in the L.A. Times) and hosted the best party at the Iron Cactus. My second favorite shirt (after the Space Invaders RCS shirt) is the “Hacking is not a crime” shirt I picked up from the MAKE booth
- in Austin (and probably just for SXSW) the term ‘Ranch’ can mean many things. What I didn’t expect it to mean at the Pure Volume Ranch (home of the huge Digg party among others) is dirt floors covered in wood chips and port-o-lets. Moby and Kevin Rose didn’t seem to mind.
- Finally had a chance to visit the Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, Texas (outside of Austin)…been coming to SXSW for three years and always heard about it but never had the chance to make it out there. It lives up to the hype
- you can buy iPods at the Houston Airport from a vending machine
- iPhones were everywhere and mine at least was indispensable during the trip. From the wifi that was available everywhere, to the Google Maps locate me feature, it was easily the most used item I brought. Using the sched.org tool to make a customized calendar of sessions/events/parties to attend, it was easy to see where to go next or what our options were if we decided to change our minds.
- I was able to get a tag for my camera that I should have exploited more. Strangely, I saw all kinds of cameras (not just DSLRs) with the tag, including a tiny little lipstick-sized webcam. There also seemed to be some discrepancy as to who should get a tag as Peter was denied just minutes after I got mine.
- If you don’t like Rockband, be glad you weren’t at SXSWi….every second booth in the Trade Show had it setup and many events used it as a focal point
- Adobe had a sneak peak of their new Adobe Media Player in a bar with a live band and a skateboard halfpipe. Nothing kills a party faster than trying to demo your software on a projector in the middle of a bar AFTER a decent local band played while skateboarders used the halfpipe in front of the stage. Still surprised about the presentation’s inappropriateness and the fact they thought they had to explain RSS feeds to a room full of geeks. The Media player actually looks decent (if not a little iTunes-ish) but they really need to work on the promotion side of things and figure out who the people that attend Southby are
- Most heard/overused word/phrase I heard this year: ‘Fail!’ or used in a sentence: ‘Epic Fail!’. #2 was ‘iPhone’. #3 was “I’ll have another Shiner Bock”.
- There wasn’t as many MacBook Air’s there as I would have expected. Consensus from those I talked to about it was they were hoping for more from Apple - or technically less as they wanted a true replacement for the 12″ Powerbook in screen size (or even smaller). It definitely got a lot of looks and was asked to hold it many times. There were a ton of eeePC’s in attendence which was cool to see.
- I managed to head over to BarCamp Austin between sessions at the convention center and sit in (briefly) on the iPhone DevCamp. As if the fact there was too much concurrent content at SXSWi, the fact that an awesome BarCamp AND iPhone camp was going on at the same time. Too much to do, not enough time to take it all in.
- As if you aren’t already tired of me talking about the BBQ, all the food was amazing…well except maybe not that late night pizza from 6th street
- as I write this post, there are over 12,000 SXSW related photos on Flickr. I have about 200 in there.
That’s pretty much it for me and this post…as I said at the beginning, there is still a lot of digesting to do (bbq and otherwise) so I may add to this once I’ve had time to take it all in.
See you next year, Austin!
Haven’t had a ton of time to post anything since I got down here in Austin….mostly just the odd twitter post. I’ve taken a lot of photos and they are viewable on my Flickr stream.
I’ll post a big wrap up once I get back (possibly even on the plane home) so for now, here’s a few highlight photos:
MJ Kim rawking the first panel
Zappos.com CEO talking about ecommerce lessons
View from my hotel’s 18th floor restaurant
Attendees in the ‘big room’
Yes, there was an accordian performance and he kicked ass
The Flickr crew at the Cathedral of Junk
The Frag Dolls pwning all comers at the Screenburn Arcade
at the “Logos and why they’re irrelevant and may actually hurt your business” panel
More soon.
The countdown has begun to Thursday morning when many Vancouver locals will crawl out of bed much eariler than normal and head down to YVR to board their flights to Austin, Texas for the 2008 edition of South by Southwest. Many of us will be on the same flight which should make the trip that much more fun.
There is still a lot to do to prepare for the trip. I still have to go through the schedule of events while at SXSWi but may take it day by day instead of spending too much time planning every hour of the conference. There are many ways to see what’s going on from the official site, Upcoming, Facebook and the SXSW Insider on Ning to name few. If you’re planning on attending any events or parties, it’s probably a good idea to scope things out in advance and rsvp. While many events are open to all Interactive attendees with a badge, demand usually far exceeds capacity so get on a list if there is one and show up early.
While down in Texas, I’ll probably not be doing a lot of blogging around here until after the conference but will be dropping dispatches from Austin on Miss604, Flickr, Utterz and Twitter…and possibly other places depending on what I find and have time for.
As more of a backup plan in case Twitter implodes under heavy use during SXSW, I decided to setup my own pseudo version of it using the recently released Prologue theme for Wordpress. If you’re going to be down in Austin and want to try it out, drop me an email or direct message and I’ll add you to the list. Using this theme and a standard Wordpress install, we’ll be able to micro-blog what we’re doing without relying on other services to be available as well as not bombarding the non-attendees with tweets.
It’s pretty plain and simple at the moment (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing since it loads fast) and that could change if I get time between packing and getting ready. A nice feature of the theme is that you can subscribe to an RSS feed of everyone’s posts or just a specific person so I’ll probably plug my feed into a few services.
That’s it for now….gotta go find my giant suitcase.
I finally received my Moo cards that I had ordered at the beginning of February. This was my third batch and it was strangely the only one to take a really long time to arrive. I wonder if it had anything to do with an influx of orders from people getting them for SXSW which is also the place I was first exposed to them in the first place.
What are they? I tend to call them my ‘personal cards’ as opposed to my somewhat boring ‘business card’ that I have for my corporate day job.
Moo cards are small (about half as tall as a business card) but are very personal. You order them in batches of 100 and are comprised of text on the back and photos on the front. You can customize the text that appears on the back and the cool part is that you also get to choose what appears on the front. Since they partner with a lot of photo sharing sites (I use Flickr), you can easily pull your own photos into Moo and create the card front with these photos. Unlike getting cards from a traditional printer, you can choose how many of your 100 cards has which photos on them. You can get 100 of the same or 100 different photos on the front of the cards or mix and match as much as you want. Pretty cool for only $19.99 plus shipping - just try to get card stock photo cards from a local printer for that little.
My third batch has turned out the best…I decided to order a lot of different photos this time around instead of just a couple of my favs. I also got a few geekier photos in there since I’ll probably be giving a lot out at SXSW soon enough. I expect to come back from Austin with a ton of other people’s cards and look forward to the Moo party down there as well.
You can use an Altoids Chewing Gum tin as the perfect case for them too.
Now that Northern Voice is over, everyone is gearing up for SXSWi which starts in just over a week. My damn Moo cards better get here soon!
One of the great things about attending a conference for a bunch of geeks, is that if there is anything missing or lacking from the conference organizers themselves, the attendees will fix/build/make it. Case in point, there isn’t currently an easy way to see all the panels and sessions in one place.
Previously, I had a Palm device and there was actually a surprisingly good schedule app available. This year of course, just about everyone there will have iPhones or an iPod Touch. There are web optimized versions of the schedule but since I’m not planning on relying on the sketchy wifi, I’d rather have something a little more stable.
Enter Stuart Colville’s iCal version of all the daytime sessions as well as the evening parties. Just download the .ICS files, add them to your iCal and then sync with your device (iPod or iPhone) and you’re done. The added benefit is that you also have it on your Mac laptop if you’re taking one. Awesome job Stuart!
Check out the SXSW Tools page for other things that will help make things more fun.
Photo by kk+ on Flickr
Another cool thing about SXSW is that it’s also a music festival…well actually it was that first and then the geeks came along. A music festival has bands which play music. They want people to hear that music so what do they do? They post a huge pile of MP3’s online of all the bands coming. Then someone makes a giant torrent of all those MP3’s.
Yup, a big pile of free music to listen to on that long flight to Austin. Thanks to Laughing Squid for the torrent link - lots of other great SXSW resources in Scott’s post too.
Finally, check out Phillip’s round up of all the locals making the trek to Texas.
One of the cool side benefits of going to the Interactive portion of SXSW is that you get exposed to the Film and Music festivals. Unless you purchase a gold passport, your Interactive badge won’t get you into those events, panels and parties…well, maybe the parties but they have armed guards preventing the film geeks from mingling with the web geeks (and vice versa) inside the convention center.
In previous years that I’ve attended, and hopefully this time around, there has been downloads of music from all the bands playing during SXSW and a huge torrent of trailers for all the movies showing during the film portion. This amounts to exposure to a ton of new music and cool new films you might not otherwise be exposed to. So even if you’re not going to Austin, you can still benefit since the downloads are free and open to anyone. Looks like this year, they have a trailer site with a videoplayer to browse through all the films. They still haven’t posted (or at least I couldn’t find) the music downloads but they do have a list of all the bands performing. I’m going to have to see about getting into the Moby session.
This year, the first trailer that I’ve come across, for a documentary about online gaming/virtual worlds called Second Skin, looks very interesting and just happens to be free for Interactive attendees:
Speaking of games, another nice benefit of going to Interactive is the Screenburn Festival which happens at the same time. They also have their own arcade tradeshow with game companies showing their wares with demos and giveaways. It’s free and open for the public as well.
If you’re planning on heading to Austin in early March to attend South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), here’s a few tips that might be helpful to you. I’ve been twice before and this year will be my third trip to Texas. Every year it’s gotten bigger than the last and I expect this year to be no exception.
SXSWi is actually only one part of the whole South by Southwest conference. Interactive happens the same time as the Film conference with the Music one starting when the film/web geeks vacate the hotels. Judging from the pictures I’ve seen, the music part is pretty amazing but I’ve never been able to stay for the full run of both conferences.
1. Pack light and bring a big suitcase.
You WILL get a lot of swag (or at least offered it) so be prepared to bring a bunch of stuff home and give it to your friends/coworkers that didn’t get to go (unless it’s cool).
Since it’s usually very warm in Austin so you can wear shorts and a t-shirt most of the time and a light jacket at night. You can even just wear the swag you get to save even more luggage space….last year I came home with about 15 t-shirts. Last year was a little cooler and it rained but it was still shorts weather.
2. Bring/wear comfortable shoes
You’ll be doing a LOT of walking between the panels, parties and your hotel so bring a good pair (or two) of comfortable shoes. Hopefully they’ve changed the panel layout this year after last year’s craziness of having a panel end at one end of the convention center and the next one begin at the other end. It is Texas and the convention center is easily the size of a small Alberta town.
3. Don’t stress about note taking
This event is easily one of most blogged/photographed/podcasted events and since you can’t expect to be everywhere at all times, you should have no problem getting the full scoop from someone else. SXSWi also publishes videos and podcasts of many panels. Although these seem to be posted over a very long period of time (like months) and not right after the event.
4. Get your DSLR tagged
kk+ gave me this tip last year (unfortunately before I had my Nikon) - if you have a ‘pro camera’ (or something that resembles one) you may be asked (but do it if not) to get your camera tagged by the Event staff. This lets people know you’re taking event photos….however they didn’t seem to care about my little Casio point and shoot. This also has the added benefit of helping you get into some places you may not normally (think Press Pass) when combined with your SXSWi lanyard. YMMV on this one.
5. Plan your power usage
EVERYONE brings a laptop to SXSWi and there are so many Apple computers there, you’d think that you were at MacWorld. Plan on charging your laptop at night for the next day. As long as your battery is decent, you should be able to last through most of the day unless you’re Twittering the whole time. If that’s the case, expect to have to share the power outlets that are strewn throughout the place with a bunch of others. Forgot your power adapter in the hotel room? No worries, as someone is bound to have the same device as you and I also witnessed some of the event staff lending cords to forgetful attendees (again it was Apple adaptors as most of the event is powered by Macs).
6. Stay in touch
If you are going to SXSWi by yourself, be prepared to meet a ton of people - you WILL leave with new friends. Chances are there are already a few people that you know going. You can find out by stalking the Online Registrants Directory, and watching Twitter/Jaiku/Pownce for SXSW messages. You might also want to get some Moo cards and be prepared to go through them all. As March draws closer, there will be a ton of online services to help attendees get organized. Panel schedules, party planners and more will be everywhere. If you want to get a head start, check out the SXSW Insider.
You’ll also want to find out about your mobile situation. Depending on your plan, make sure you understand the implications of using your cellphone in Texas. If you’re from Canada like me, prepare to get screwed on roaming charges. Even if you forward your phone to voicemail, you may be charged the roaming fees if it rings through in Austin. A better bet is picking up a disposable (don’t really throw it out when you’re done) cellphone or pay as you go SIM card if you rock the GSM. AT&T has a cheap phone you can pickup almost anywhere south of the border for $10-20 that will give you a cheap local number while down south. I got my phone/sim from Radio Shack for $10 with a $10 credit (free+tax) then added a $25 card. T-Mobile also has SIM cards you can get from ebay but they apparently don’t let you use data on the prepaid SIMs unlike AT&T. Make sure if you do get a phone down there that you can find additional add on cards for it…the first year I took a US Virgin Mobile phone with me and couldn’t find the cards anywhere and they didn’t accept my Canadian credit card to top up online or over the phone.
Unless your company is paying (and doesn’t care), the pay as you go route will be infinitely cheaper than anything a Canadian provider will charge you. Don’t forget to change/disable/reroute your Twitter/Jaiku/Facebook mobile notifications as well as those can get costly when roaming depending on your plan.
That’s all for now….more as SXSWi gets closer!
Last year, a coworker and I made a submission for a panel at SXSW Interactive. Unfortunately, we didn’t get enough votes (but thanks for yours if you took the time!) - that or it was because we’re not internet rockstars (yet).
But I’m still going as an attendee and finally took a closer look at the sessions that did make the cut. It’s not a final list yet nor is it a list with the full details of each session.
As you can see from the list below, it’s pretty huge and I’ve chopped out a ton of sessions simply because I don’t know more about them yet. This is usually the problem at SXSW - there are too many great sessions going on and they always seem to be in the same time slot. I think there is something like 8 sessions going on at any time during the conference so it’s impossible to have a perfect schedule. Somehow, I’m sure I’ll manage, possibly with the help of some good BBQ.
Ironically, I had gone through the schedule before the names were attached and had actually circled the “Blame Canada” session without even knowing that kk+ was the one giving it so I’m sure it will rock. I’m also glad to see Kathy Sierra on the list again - she’s made SXSW worth attending every time I’ve been to her sessions.
Here’s a few sessions that have piqued my interest based on title or speaker alone - hard to believe this is only a small portion of the sessions too:
AJAX and Flash Mistakes (Jonathan Boutelle)
Behind the Scenes at the Onion News Network (Sean Mills)
Filching Design: When the Shoe Fits (Lindsey Simon)
How to Rawk SXSW: Achieving Geekgasm (Ariel Waldman)
The Rise of Authentic Media (Derek Powazek)
Social Marketing Strategies Metrics, Where Are They? (Tom Parish)
Social Network Coups: The Users are Revolting! (Annalee Newitz)
The Suxorz: The Worst Ten Social Media Ad Campaigns of 2007 (Henry Copeland)
Taking Your Web Talent to the Video Game Industry (Adam DuVander)
Top Ten Lessons Learned in E-Commerce (Tony Hsieh)
Worst Website Ever: That’s So Crazy, It Just Might Work (Andy Baio)
You’re the Pawn, Sucker: a Google Maps-Nintendo Mash-up (Rodney Gibbs)
Keynote Speaker: Mark Zuckerberg
A/B Testing: Design Friend or Foe? (Corey Chandler)
Career Transitions: From DIY to Working for The Man (Jason Garber)
Does Tomorrow’s World Need Designers? (David Merkoski)
Everyone’s A Design Critic (Jason Santa Maria)
From Frustration to Elation: Getting Emotional by Design (Dan Rubin)
Logos: Why They’re Irrelevant and Can Actually Hurt Your Business (Bryan Zmijewski)
Magic and Mental Models: Using Illusion to Simplify Designs (Jared M. Spool)
Make It So: Learning From SciFi Interfaces (Nathan Shedroff)
Mobileactive: How Mobile Technology Impacts Politics and Vice Versa (Justin Oberman)
The Science of Designing Interactions (Andreas Weigend)
Scope Creep and Other Villains (James Archer)
Social Design Strategies (Emily Chang)
Tools for Enchantment: 20 Ways to Woo Users (Kathy Sierra)
A Critical Look At OpenID (Jason Levitt)
The Art of Self-Branding (Lea Alcantara)
Blame Canada: 7 Ways We’re Ahead in New Media (Kris Krug)
Browser Wars: Deja Vu All Over Again? (Arun Ranganathan)
Building Developer-Friendly Web Service APIs (Ben Vinegar)
Building Portable Social Networks (Jeremy Keith)
Hardware Mashups: Introducing the Long Tail of Gadgets (Peter Semmelhack)
How Piracy Will Save the Music Industry (Jason Schwartz)
Make Your Audience Love You (Tom Merritt)
Mobile Phones: International Devices of Mystery (Michael Sharon)
Self Replicating Awesomeness: The Marketing of No Marketing (Brian Oberkirch)
Social Networking and Your Brand (Jina Bolton)
Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR! (Dave McClure)
Content Management System Roundup (George DeMet)
Creative Collaboration: Building Web Apps Together (Paul Hammond)
Data as Art: Musical, Visual Web APIs (Peter Kirn)
Designing for Freedom (Gina Bianchini)
The Future of Corporate Blogs (Lionel Menchaca)
Futurists’ Sandbox: Scenarios for Social Technologies in 2025 (Michele Bowman)
Getting There Faster By Using Open Code (Jack Moffitt)
How to Rawk After SXSW: Staying Inspired (Kevin Smokler)
Life After the i-Phone (Kate Ryan)
Roll Over Gutenberg, Tell McLuhan The News (George Kelly)
Secrets of JavaScript Libraries (John Resig)
Take Municipal WiFi Back (Joanna Rees)
Taking Over the World: the Flickr Way (Simon Batistoni)
Using Entertainment to Create Effective Mobile Advertising (Adam Zbar)
Whew…it’s going to be a busy conference.
There is a lot going on over the next little while around town and elsewhere. Here’s just a few of the events you should check out.
Tonight (Sunday, January 20th for you slow feed readers)
Watch Rebecca (aka Miss604) on CBC’s Test the Nation where she (and a few other locals) ‘represents’ on the Blogger’s team. I think I can actually get away with saying “You go girl” and not look like a tard in this case. I’m sure she’ll find a way to live blog via her iPhone. My TiVo is set to record so expect some video highlights of Becky beating some flight attendants with her brain.
Creative Thinking Hacks - Tuesday, January 22nd
I’m really going to try to attend this talk at VFS by Scott Berkun put on as part of the VanUE group.
Launch Party Vancouver 3 - Friday, January 25th
I missed the first two parties and won’t be missing this one…hosted by Strutta.com, I keep hearing about how much fun they are and a lot of my friends will be there RSVP on the Facebook group or their site if you’re interested in meeting up with a lot of the local tech community.
Third Tuesday - January 29th
The monthly event just keeps getting better and better (thanks to Tod and Tanya) and this month is no exception with Brian Oberkirch’s talk on Social Media and Brands.
Vancouver Blogger’s Meetup - January 30th
Another monthly meetup that I’ve missed the last couple but will be attending this one….if you blog, or want to blog, you should come out too. Lots of great people to talk with.
Privacy & Security Conference - Feb 6-8th (Victoria)
Due to some projects I’m involved in lately, I’ll be attending this conference in Victoria for the first time. The agenda looks very interesting and the speakers are very impressive.
Northern Voice - February 22-23 (UBC)
Great little local conference I finally discovered last year (this is the 4th year) for people interested in blogging….it’s also not just for geeks. I met a lot of great people last year and look forward to seeing many of them again and meeting new friends this time around. Tickets are very affordable but that is also why they always sell out so get yours as soon as possible.
South by Southwest Interactive - March 6-11 (Austin, Texas)
Easily my favorite tech conference held each year in Austin, Texas. This will be my third trip to the Lone Star state and look forward to meeting up with friends again as well as taking in all it has to offer. It’s also one of the least expensive tech conferences and there is arguably no better place to meet and interact with the brightest people in the tech world. If you haven’t already booked a hotel expect a long commute as all the good ones were booked months ago…I had the foresight to book mine last September. It’s worth the trip for the BBQ beef brisket alone and the Raincity Studios folks put on the best party during the event.
These are just a few of the things on my plate for the next little while…hope to see you at one (or more) of them.
Since everyone is doing it, I thought I should do the same although I have a hard time putting them in some kind of order…so they aren’t!
Here is my list of the random things from last year that stood out to me in no particular order:
- my iPhone - in case you haven’t noticed, I kinda dig this phone. Sure it’s not perfect but overall, it’s hands down the best cellphone I’ve ever owned (and I’ve owned a lot). It’s also the first phone that has made me stop looking for a better one. It’s been a lot of fun this past year sharing it with friends and helping others with theirs. You’ll notice it’s the only tech item on this list (shocking!) but it’s been hard for it to not be a focal point on this site and with many friends. This is a geek blog afterall so if I had to pick one tech item from last year, this is it.
- Falling in love with photography again - I fully blame/credit kk+ for this. As I’ve said before, after attending Kris’ Photography session at Northern Voice something struck a chord that made me want to pick up a camera again for more than just snapshots. Kris’ passion for taking photos really had an impact. That lead to picking up my first DSLR (after years of point and shoot and film cameras) and reconnecting with a fantastic creative outlet that I had been into before I became a (computer) geek. Thanks Kris!
- Friends - I don’t talk about too many ‘personal’ things on this blog but this past year has been an immensely rewarding year for meeting new people and forging new friendships on and offline (real life FTW!). Social media/networking/whatever has really changed how people communicate, meet, collaborate and generally be human. I’m still surprised how many friends from my past I’ve reconnected with on Facebook as well as how many real life friends these tools has helped stay in contact with in ways that I never expected. Everything including SXSW, Northern Voice, photowalks, tech events, Camps (how come I never see tents?) and meetups has put me in contact with some truly amazing people (way too many to list). I look forward to building on those friendships and making more new ones this year and beyond.
- Buying our first home - my wife and I made probably the biggest financial move of our lives this past summer and it has been an amazing experience. Even when we were stressed out and woefully unprepared for our big move, our friends came through and helped in ways that I can’t ever repay. It has been a fanatastic experience being a ‘homeowner’ - like a really good rollercoaster that can make you sick and giggle like a schoolgirl at the same time. The commute isn’t that bad and has been totally worth it!
I know that’s only 4…I can’t think of anything else from last year that’s had as much impact as these 4 things have had on me at a high level at least.
So 2007 in summary: I’ll call you with my iPhone to invite you over to my house and take your picture.
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